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Danny Cipriani brilliantly read Jack Carty’s pass to snaffle the ball in the air and he might have been able to go all the way as he raced well past the halfway line with a decent gap to the chasing pack. Instead he selflessly fed Louis Rees-Zammit, who came haring round to offer his support and there was definitely no way anyone was catching him once he got the ball, sprinting away to score under the posts.

That swung the momentum of the game decisively Gloucester’s way as they never relinquished the lead andit was the catalyst for their best spell to take the game away from Connacht.

Key moment

With Gloucester knocking on the door for another try, Connacht gave away several penalties and eventually the infringements led to a yellow card for Kyle Godwin.

It proved to be costly as Gloucester scored from the next play, using the extra man well as they went to the blindside from the scrum and full-back Tom Marshall threw the dummy to create enough space to surge towards the line for his second try of the game.

Just three minutes later following a lineout, Jake Polledri bulldozed his way through the Connacht defence and charged towards the line for the bonus-point try, making it a total of 14 points while Godwin was in the sin bin.

Could the win be a turning point?

After a run of five straight defeats, Gloucester simply needed to win to get their season back on track.

They started at a good intensity and opened the scoring after just four minutes with Marshall showing brilliant footwork to evade the defenders and cross the whitewash.

The rest of the first half was a tale of frustration though as they created so many opportunities but were often let down by errors at vital moments and the high risk strategy of going for tries over easy three pointers did not appear to be working out.

His pace also served him well when he got back to make a try-saving tackle on Eoghan Masterson when Connacht were pushing for a try to get back into the contest in the final 10 minutes.

There may have been some raised eyebrows when Rees-Zammit started the previous European match against Montpellier when Ackermann heavily rotated but he has certainly repaid the faith shown in him and has now played in the last three.

He looks like he might be in the team to stay as he has all the attributes to play at the highest level.

Where win leaves Gloucester

The win stopped the rot for Gloucester but it was also essential if they were to have any chance of reaching the Heineken Champions Cup quarter-finals.

Their first European win of the season lifted them to second in Pool Five but they are still six points behind Toulouse, who made it three wins out of three against Montpellier.